Stories are the shortest distance between us and truth. – Chris Cade

We all have a story to tell and if we’re being honest we all love telling our stories. Think about the details we share with our friends and family, we tell them what matters most and that reveals exactly who we are. There are endless amounts of people who publish their story, go on tour to talk about how life-changing events got them to where they are today, or have blogs just for their own joy. We tell our story so we can understand deeper layers of it, to pick up nuances not seen before. We are continually reminding ourselves of who we are and how we got to where we are today, and that knowledge informs the decisions we will be making in the future. Telling our story also has the power to change us, we constantly reinvent ourselves, starting fresh each time. By picking over the bones of past mistakes and successes we take a look back on pivotal decisions with greater awareness and this offers us the chance to make deeper connections.

It only takes one penetrating question, or a random thought, to suddenly strike us and enliven all the threads of our lives, letting them weave together in unexpected ways. Secrets that were hidden bubble up to the surface. There is magic in speaking what we believe in our core. It lets us put the pieces of our lives together and each time we do we get clearer on the truth of what makes us tick. The big picture of who we are comes more into focus and from there we can redefine and redesign who we are, laying the plans for who we will become. We gain clarity by honestly telling our story, it shows us all our different aspects not just the ones we like. That kind of soul searching creates a shift that lets us grow deeper into the roots of who we are.

What we hang onto can tell us volumes about ourselves. Last year I cleaned out my storage, it was an epic week-long event. I found that from all the stuff I had accumulated over the last few decades I ended up keeping very little. What was left represented the threads that had been running through my life from the beginning, and they were the things that still made sense and enriched my life. Everything else I threw away. They were old stories, the ones I had outgrown. But in getting rid of the old I made more room for the stories I am still growing into. That’s the most exciting part about telling our stories, they reveal possibilities we had never imagined, possibilities that lay the authentic foundation of what’s to come.

So let telling your story become a tool for growth and evolution. There is always something new to be discovered. It’s only in the telling of what has been that we can get to what’s next.

kb